Ad Muncher, I launched you 15 years ago, and since day one I've felt slightly uneasy for charging people for the faster, safer and more pleasant browsing experience you provide.

Anybody that knows me knows that I apologize a little too much, but I honestly felt the need to apologize to every single user for making them pay their hard-earned $29.95.

Charging this way though has allowed me to fund development myself, and I never needed investment or other revenue sources that could interfere with my goal of an influence-free ad blocker.

But now, with the financial support provided by over 100,000 people, I've decided it's finally time for you to be let free.

What?

Ad Muncher is normally available for $29.95, plus $19.95 per year after that, but will now be available in the same form as a completely free product.

All users will receive filter list updates. Weekly to begin with, then daily if our hosting can handle the load.

Seriously?

Yes, nothing has been changed, we're just moving to much higher capacity hosting, and removing all the anti-piracy rubbish we needed previously.

How?

This will be financially difficult for me. Salaries for three people, along with our usual expenses, will be covered entirely by myself by selling almost everything I have, and taking on some external work.

At some point in the future, I may need to offer complimentary software products to Ad Muncher users (for example, a recommended spyware blocker or antivirus). These will be done respectfully, and will only be products that compliment Ad Muncher and which I genuinely use myself.

I will never, ever accept payments from an advertising company to allow their ads through our list, or install any third-party software on your system.

I've previously turned down offers to make significant money from both of these sources, but I need to sleep at night, and users of Ad Muncher deserve to be treated right after all the support they've given me.

I just paid damn it!

I completely understand how you would be feeling if you recently purchased Ad Muncher, only to see this announcement.

Ad Muncher wouldn't be here without your support. You saw a struggling software product and paid your hard-earned cash to help keep it alive. Your support is appreciated, and will never be forgotten.

My only request at this point is that you understand the difficult position this transition will place me in financially, and accept my goal of giving you no less in terms of service than if Ad Muncher wasn't free.

We have a 30-day full refund policy that I'm happy to still provide, but every refund will reduce the chances of Ad Muncher surviving as a free product.

What about version 5?

Work will continue on our new cross-platform filtering solution. We're six years into the development and as committed as ever to bringing this to market.

Hmmm, ok then

Ad Muncher, you'll never make me rich, and I've made a net loss running you for the last two years, but I just don't care.

You've made a lot of people happy, you've let me do what I love for a living, and I'm honestly just looking forward to seeing you making browsing faster, safer and more pleasant for a larger number of people.

If you're reading this, I'd like to leave you with one last important request: